What do you call hummus past its sell-by date? Post hummus!...and other terrible jokes and fascinating facts to help you through the crisis facing Britain's favourite dipDo you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline?

Forget approximately the snap General Election, Trump?S presidency and a Gallic political wife antique sufficient to be her husband?S mother.

What?S surely left Britain?S center training reeling is the national hummus/houmous/humus (but you spell it) crisis.

The Middle Eastern dip has end up as tons of a staple of our purchasing baskets as wholemeal bread, semi-skimmed milk and flawlessly ripened avocados.

We devour 12,000 tonnes of the stuff a 12 months, for goodness sake.

Or we did, till purchasers around the united states of america described ?Very own-brand? Hummus in Waitrose, Sainsbury?S, Marks & Spencer and Tesco as tasting uncharacteristically ?Metal?, ?Fizzy? And, well, really now not first-rate.

Crisis: The Middle Eastern dip has become as a whole lot of a staple of our purchasing baskets as wholemeal bread, semi-skimmed milk and flawlessly ripened avocados

The important supermarkets straight away cleared their cabinets, bringing up a ?Manufacturing trouble? At their mutual supplier.

Ever considering the fact that, despondent hummus enthusiasts have been muttering in melancholy and, in some cases, even resorting to making their very own at domestic ? With various degrees of success.

All of which may sound a chunk over-dramatic to the uninitiated, to whom hummus is probably just a stinky beige paste in a plastic pot languishing long past its sell-through date in the back of fridge.

Here, we convey you the whole lot you?Ve ever desired to understand about our favourite superfood ? Which include its unexpected aphrodisiacal characteristics that may upload a stunning (albeit instead garlicky) ?Va va voom? Within the bedroom . . .

Consumers around the usa defined ?Own-emblem? Hummus in Waitrose, Sainsbury?S, Marks & Spencer and Tesco as tasting uncharacteristically ?Metallic?, ?Fizzy?

EXOTIC ORIGINS

Hummus is a 1,three hundred-12 months-old peasant dish from the Middle East manufactured from cooked and mashed chickpeas or different beans, sesame paste (tahini), lemon, garlic and salt. It is traditionally served on a massive plate, drizzled with olive oil and herbs and followed with the aid of fresh pitta bread, tomato, onion, cucumber salad and maybe, for a flourish, a few falafel (fried chickpea balls).

HOW DO WE SPELL IT?

There are 5 spellings in not unusual use ? Hummus, houmous, humus, hommus and hommos. The Oxford English Dictionary lists hummus first ? Probably due to the fact that?S the Arabic phrase for chickpeas, however maximum supermarkets use houmous. You pick your preferred.

What?S without a doubt left Britain?S center training reeling is the countrywide hummus/houmous/humus (but you spell it) crisis

A UK LOVE AFFAIR

In 25 years, it has long past from an unusual vegetarian delicacy favoured with the aid of kaftan-carrying hippies, to a £70 million industry.

Cookery guru Elizabeth David wrote about hummus lower back in 1955 in her ebook Mediterranean Food, but it became extra current celeb cooks Yotam Ottolenghi and Claudia Roden who helped to popularise it.

Waitrose become the first grocery store to begin stocking it inside the late Eighties, accompanied by M&S in 1990 and Tesco and Sainsbury?S some years later.

Britain is the hummus capital of Europe, with an estimated 40 in line with cent of the population having pots of the stuff (but old) in the fridge.

UPPER-CLASS TASTE

It May be a fridge staple, but research indicates that hummus intake is still dominated via the higher and center lessons and tails off a few of the over-44s.

WHO MAKES IT?

While there are endless organic cottage industries churning out more and more bold-sounding flavours, maximum of the Britain?S ?Value? Hummus (no matter grocery store chain) is made by using just one now rather red-confronted enterprise, Bakkavor, which employs more than 18,000 human beings around the sector in 43 facilities, inclusive of the UK.

Last yr, it changed into suggested to be converting its British people? Shift styles in response to the growing call for for hummus.

MIDDLE-CLASS CRISIS

News of the hummus scarcity caused uproar ? Albeit tongue-in-cheek ? On social media.

One disgruntled purchaser tweeted Sainsbury?S, writing: ?Well. That?S my Saturday night time RUINED.? Another stated: ?Sainsbury?S this signals the cease of the sector! Two days no hummus . . . It?S my staple!?

One made it political with: ?If the Lib Dems don?T make the hummus disaster a centrepiece of the marketing campaign, they don?T truely care about Remainers.?

And a miles-seeing chap added: ?In destiny generations you?Ll have the ability to inform your grandkids wherein you have been for the duration of the wonderful hummus scarcity of 2017.?

News of the hummus scarcity triggered uproar ? Albeit tongue-in-cheek ? On social media

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Social media become awash with jokes approximately the hummus scarcity in supermarkts

POTS OF HEALTH

Hummus has a low GI (glycaemic index) fee (meaning it won?T ship your blood sugar hovering) little saturated fat, tahini being a rather healthy supply of oil, and is so protein-rich it facilitates to improve bone, muscle, pores and skin and blood health. The stuff is suggested by means of the NHS internet site for pregnant women ? Ideally served with wholemeal pitta bread and carrot sticks.

It?S a protein-rich snack to combat starvation cravings, while its excessive iron content can assist increase both power and willingness to exercise. But it's also very salty and now not particularly low-cal.

Last year, campaign organization Consensus Action on Salt and Health branded it a ?Salt and fat trap?. Each 100g serving consists of round 280 calories, or about a 6th of a woman?S advocated each day consumption.

Marks & Spencer?S Caramelised Onion Houmous contained 1.53g salt in step with 100g ? The equivalent of more than four packets of ready salted crisps.

Hummus has a low GI (glycaemic index) value (that means it won?T send your blood sugar hovering) 

SPICE IT UP

If you?Re looking to perk things up a bit in the bed room, swap oysters for a pot of hummus. According to chef Fed Federer, chickpeas are the ?Queen of Aphrodisiacs?.

As properly as bursting with iron, magnesium, zinc and potassium ? All of which help in sexual feature and increase power ? They contain arginine, an amino acid that increases blood movement and enables out in different areas.

CHICKPEA WARS

Over the years, everyone from the Egyptians to the Greeks to the Mediterranean nations have bickered over the right to claim hummus as their national dish.

The major supermarkets immediately cleared their shelves, mentioning a ?Manufacturing problem?

Unsurprisingly, Israel and Lebanon took matters further. After limitless rows approximately who?D ?Invented? It, in October 2008 the latter tried ? Unsuccessfully ? To sue Israel for ?Stealing? Hummus, claiming Lebanon exported the primary hummus dish in 1959 and petitioning the Lebanese Ministry of Economy and Trade to request covered repute from the European Commission for hummus as a uniquely Lebanese meals.

They didn?T make a lot headway. One Israeli critic claimed that looking to make a copyright declare over hummus turned into ?Like claiming for the rights to bread or wine?.

So as an alternative, the Lebanese redoubled their efforts inside the ?Biggest hummus batch inside the global? Opposition and, in 2010, 300 chefs in the village of Al-Fanar, close to Beirut, set a new record for Lebanon with a 10,450kg hummus ? More than two times the size of Israel?S previous report-breaking attempt.

HUMMUS HILARITY

Did you listen about the vegetarian who died throughout dinner? Police are calling it a hummus aspect.

What do you call hummus that?S gone horrific? Post-hummus.

Who?S the newest member on the evolutionary tree? Hummus-sapiens.

Apparently Greece has decreased its exports of hummus and taramasalata. They?Re pronouncing it?S a double-dip recession . . .

SWEET OR SOUR?

DIY RECIPE 

With cabinets bare, the desperate can continually make their personal, with:

7oz canned chickpeas

2 beaten garlic cloves

100ml tahini

4 tbsp water

2 tbsp lemon juice

1 tsp floor cumin

Rinse and drain chickpeas. Combine substances in a meals processor, combination until creamy. 

Serve at room temperature with a sprint of extra lemon juice, a pinch of salt to taste and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.

Give or take an additional squeeze of lemon, the fundamental recipe ? Chickpeas, tahini, garlic, lemon juice and salt ? Remained sacred for 800 years. Until these days, when chefs, supermarkets and foodies began dreaming up an increasing number of hip and modern day and, a few might say, deeply unappetising flavours.

Peanut butter hummus, all of us? Or maybe beetroot, horseradish and sage; jalapeno, banana and cocoa; pizza; wasabi or chocolate mousse flavour.

For the (barely) much less adventurous there's avocado hummus; lemon and coriander, caramelised onion or crimson pepper. All, evidently, at as a substitute inflated fees. 

HOW TO EAT IT

As a dip for vegetables and crisps, unfold on pitta bread, slathered in sandwiches, or as a main route with falafel and salads.

But according to Israeli-born British chef Yotam Ottolenghi, you must by no means, ever serve it instantly from the refrigerator. ?It kills the flavour,? He says.

And whilst sharing hummus with buddies, some thing you do, never double-dip your crudites.